Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe review – Multitasking redefined

Asus boasts of being the first company to launch a smartphone with 4 GB of RAM for the Zenfone 2. The company then launched another variant with 64 GB called the Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe. Is it really a workhorse? We find out in our review.

Hardware and Design:

Asus has focussed on the design for the Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe with the new Ergonomic Arc design on the plastic back with a finish that has patterns of randomly placed polygons giving it a rather crude rich feel. However, this sometimes feels slightly uneven when held in the hand giving and unsteady feel.

While the display measures just 5.5 inches, the phone feels slightly big owing to the side bezels. To make things worse, the power button is placed at the center of the top edge, making it fairly difficult to reach it, when using with one hand. Thankfully, you can wake the display by double tapping on it. Overall, the phone feels slightly heavy in the hand weighing almost 170 grams.

The front has the earpiece along with the 5 MP selfie camera. Also present is the notification LED. Below the display, there are capacitive touch buttons for back, home and multitasking. Surprisingly, the buttons are not backlit.

Surprisingly, the overall design, especially the back, reminded us of the LG flagship design. Not just the curved back but the brushed metal volume rocker on the rear side just below the camera module.

Also present is the 13 MP primary camera with the dual tone LED flash above it. We also have the Asus logo etched out in metal with the speaker grill at the bottom.

The top edge has the power button, 3.5mm audio jack and the secondary microphone.

The bottom edge only has the microUSB port.

Display:

The Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe has a brilliant 5.5 inch full HD display with resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection and also has an anti-fingerprint coating that prevents the smudges. It has a 72 percent screen-to-body ratio but still looks surprisingly big. While the phone has very good viewing angles, visibility in direct sunlight is very poor.

Performance:

The Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe is powered by the quad core Intel Atom Z3580 processor clocked at 2.33 GHz. It is supported by a massive 4 GB of RAM. Also present is the PowerVR G6430 GPU. Overall, the phone offers excellent performance but it does tend to heat up slightly when used continuously.

The game is not only perfect for running heavy apps, but also games like Asphalt 8. The graphics support also make the playing experience wonderful. Multitasking is a must-try on this phone, thanks to the huge amount of RAM available. You could easily run multiple number of apps without any signs off lag. The device scored a whopping 46755 points on the AnTuTu Benchmarks, zooming past the OnePlus One and almost touching the Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

OS and UI:

The Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe runs on the Android v5.0.2 Lollipop version with a layer of the company’s Zen UI which has several features and enhancements but could be confusing at times. The drop down notification menu is the most useful with toggles for customizable quick settings menu options like smart savings, reading mode, one hand operation, Wi-Fi hotspot, Glove mode other than the usual settings.

While customizing the UI, Asus also added quite a few apps. While they don’t really slow down the phone (4 GB RAM), they do tend to get irritating when they pop open unnecessarily.

However, the camera only sounds good on paper and slightly disappoints in reality. The pictures taken even in broad daylight come slightly over saturated with heavy contrast. However, the camera has to be held very steadily for proper shots. Even the slightest movement results in blurred images. The dual tone flash is very useful to offer a real background setting. However, even images taken with flash result with noise.

The front facing camera has a 5 MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture, 85-degree Field of View and 5-element lens. The front camera also has modes like Beauty, Effect, Selfie Panorama, Low Light, and Time Lapse However, the selfies are slightly average and are bad in low light condition.

Storage and Connectivity:

The Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe flaunts a 64 GB inbuilt storage of which 54 GB is available to the user. The memory can still further be expanded up to 128 GB using microSD cards. The device also has support for USB OTG.

As for connectivity, the phone has dual SIM support with Dual SIM Dual Active support which allows you to use both the SIM cards simultaneously. The handset has 4G LTE support but only on the first SIM. The second SIM has no data connectivity support whatsoever. It also has Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (Dual-band), Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and NFC support.

Battery:

The Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe comes with a massive 3000 mAh non-removable Lithium Polymer battery, which sadly doesn’t seem to be sufficient to make the device last all day long. The battery lasts for hardly 12 hours on a moderate usage but comes to less than 8 hours when used extensively for gaming. Interestingly, the phone has support for Fast Charging technology, which lets the device charge to almost full in an hour.

Conclusion:

Overall, the Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe offers a blazing performance at the price point however it definitely not a device you would like to carry around a lot. If you intend to get some serious work done on the move or just love gaming, then this is definitely the right pick for you.